Step 2 Died - Six Steps to the Throne Series
SIX STEPS TO THE THRONE
Gary Garner
Lesson Two: DIED
Solomon’s kingdom is the most perfect type of the kingdom of God that we have in our Old Testament. We believe that the Old Testament contains visual aids of spiritual truths. The kingdom of God is a future thing, but it is also a present thing. Jesus said in Luke’s gospel that the kingdom of God does not come with observation, but he said, behold, the kingdom of God is within you. There has first got to be an awareness of the kingdom of God within us before we are ever going to see the kingdom of God manifested in this earth.
We find here that the throne of that king had six steps to it. I guess if there is a statement that would describe what God is doing to us and, we believe, to the world, is that He’s leading us to His throne. He’s bringing us to His place of ruling and reigning. He’s bringing us to the place that we call ascension life. Paul said in Ephesians 2 that we have been quickened or made alive together with Him, raised and seated together with Him. We know quickening applies to the new birth experience. We can easily link up the resurrection to the Spirit filled life.
We are to sit with Him in the heavenlies; we are to rule and reign from that dimension. Here’s the problem: most people have never linked ruling with resting. Kingdom principles are altogether different, totally opposite from those of the world. We think of ruling and reigning as physically working our way into a relationship in which we just conquer things. But that’s not the way the kingdom of God works. We rest in what has been conquered. We rest in the facts of the conquest of Christ.
And so we come here to this throne, and we find there are six steps to that throne. In every step there is a riser and a tread, so we can see that there is something that brings us higher, and there’s a walking out of that.
Let’s talk about the throne so we will understand what we are talking about. What is the throne of God? That is very important. There are six steps to it, but what is it? How does it apply to you and me? Where are we going to be when we get there? What are we going to be like when we get there? What is our mind set going to be? There is no use going through this study if we don’t know the objective.
Psalm 132:12-14 If thy children will keep my covenant and my testimony that I shall teach them, their children shall also sit upon thy throne for evermore. For the Lord hath chosen Zion: he hath desired it for his habitation. This is my rest forever; here will I dwell; for I have desired it.
Zion is a people, the church. We find here that God’s throne is a resting place in His people. What is God ultimately trying to do? We say we’re seeking the rest of God. Really, we’re seeking the place that God is comfortable resting in a people. That’s really the plan and purpose as it is outlined in scripture. When the tabernacle of Moses was finished, God came and rested in it. When David’s tabernacle was finished, God’s presence was there in that little tent. All of those things are pictures of the church and what God is doing there. His throne is the place where He rests.
Psalm 99:1 The Lord reigneth; let the people tremble; he sitteth between the cherubims; let the earth be moved.
Where is God’s throne? The psalmist says that He sits between the cherubims. Now what are we talking about there? In the tabernacle of Moses, behind the veil can be seen this little box called the Ark of the Covenant that had a lid. That is called the mercy seat.
Here we find that the mercy seat was two and a half cubits by a cubit and a half, the same size as the ark, speaking of the fact that the mercy is just as wide as Christ and His work. It has no dimension of depth given. There’s no way to measure how deep the mercy goes, if you are in Christ.
There were cherubims that were made out of the same piece of gold as the mercy seat. The Bible says that God sits there. Those people that He rested among were not perfect people. How on earth does a holy God dwell among an unholy people? He has a place to rest, and that resting place is called the mercy seat. We are headed in that direction. What are we doing? When we’ve learned everything there is to learn about Jesus and His work, where are we going to be? We are going to be on the throne, but what is the throne? It’s a mercy seat. Why was God lawfully allowed to come in and dwell among His people? Because there was something on that mercy seat that, to Him, allowed Him to rest among the people.
The only problem is, in the old covenant, it was a rest that kept everybody away except the high priest just once a year because he typified the finished work of Christ. The problem is not with God. The problem is in our thinking. We can’t rest with Him because we don’t know what those six steps are. We don’t know the riser and the tread of those steps. I promise you when we do, we’ll rest with Him. We are at the verge of that. We are at the veil in the calendar of God, and that is the reason light from the mercy seat is shining toward a people, drawing us back there. Somebody is going to sit down on the mercy seat with Him.
The fact is Ephesians 2 says we’ve been seated together with Him in the heavenlies for two thousand years. What does that mean? Jesus sat down with the Father. Where’s that? On the mercy seat. So God is bringing us, in our mind, to a place where we will come back and know so much about these steps of redemption that we are willing just to rest in the finished work of Christ.
There isn’t a more beautiful picture of what God is doing than in Genesis 1 and 2, where God says He is going to make a man who is going to rule and reign and have dominion and subdue. That includes himself and his surroundings. The very next day, the Bible says God rested on the seventh day because he was finished. The first picture of man and God is on the sixth day. Man was finished, completed, and it was God’s view there to have him rule and reign with God from the position of rest. Did that plan fail? It didn’t fail because that which you see in Genesis 1 and 2 is just a picture of what God is now doing. We are at the end of the sixth day, and guess what’s going to happen? God is going to have a man finished, complete, head and body, the new creation man.
The table of shewbread was the next piece of furniture that is described after the mercy seat. God said, I will commune with you there.
Then the next thing he describes is the table of shewbread on which are twelve loaves of bread in two stacks of six. There are the six steps again, and the six things that Jesus did, He was crucified, we were crucified with Him; Jesus died, we died with Him, etc…That is why there are two stacks instead of one.
But here’s the thing we want you to see; the specific sizes, two tenth deals means omer. In other words, it was an omer (the bible says in Exodus 16, put an omer’s worth of manna in the pot. Omer was one man’ portion.) That whole table represents the portion of one new man in all of the things that Jesus did. Jesus the head and Jesus the body (the in-Christed ones). God is building a man. That man in Genesis one, the first Adam, did not enter in; but God wasn’t surprised about that because Rev. 13:8 says that Jesus was crucified before the foundation of the world. He was already crucified before Adam fell. Can you see God’s plan? His whole plan revolves around crucifixion.
You do not have a problem big enough that crucifixion won’t take care of. That is God’s plan. The beginning says He was crucified from the foundation of the world, and the end of the book says that the bride of Christ is married to the Lamb. Well, the Lamb speaks of Jesus’ crucifixion. That’s where our union started. It’s a communion table. He said, “I will commune with you there.” See how they’re linked together? What’s this table about? The bread on the table leads you to the mercy seat. You feed on that, and it will lead you to the mercy seat.
II Samuel 6:12a, 13 And it was told king David, saying, the Lord hath blessed the house of Obed-edom, and all that pertaineth unto him, because of the ark of God. And it was so, that when they that bare the ark of the Lord had gone six paces, he sacrificed oxen and fatlings.
Here is the Ark of the Covenant being brought back to Mt. Zion. The Ark of the Covenant has the mercy seat on it. Now notice, when they were bringing back the ark into David’s tabernacle, they walked six steps and sacrificed. That is not accidental. That tells you how to get the ark, the mercy seat, back into the church. They took the bread off of the table every Sabbath and got fresh bread. What they did was, they took this hot bread, put it on the table, and they ate it. The priests ate the bread that had cooled off; it had been there seven days. That shows you that this Sabbath is the place of rest. When the day of rest comes, you will have eaten this bread because you are a priest also, a Royal Priesthood. The ark comes to rest in the tabernacle by going six paces.
Some translations indicate that they went six steps, stopped and sacrificed. They went six more steps, stopped and sacrificed. That is what we are doing. What is our message? Six steps. That’s what we proclaim. I know that will get the job done. Then we get to Solomon’s temple and his kingdom, and there are six steps to the throne. It is pictured all the way through scripture. Every major picture of the church shows where we’re going with six steps: crucified, died, buried, quickened, raised and seated.
Deut. 12:9,10 For ye are not as yet come to the rest and to the inheritance, which the Lord your God giveth you. But when you go over Jordan, and dwell in the land which the Lord your God giveth you to inherit, and when he giveth you rest from all your enemies round about, so that ye dwell in safety;
We can see that this fits many in the Body of Christ today; we’re not there yet, but we’re on our way there. We’re following the ark there. Verse 10 gives us the principle. The direction - rest - is found by going over the Jordan. Jordan means “the descender,” and it speaks of death.
In the last lesson we shared with you that we were crucified with Him. Now we want to share the fact that you died with Him. You have heard some call them selves “walking dead men.” We are not walking dead men. The person you used to be is dead; you are alive unto God. That is so important to understand. Can you see the difference? If you are a walking dead man, then you haven’t buried the dead man that Jesus said you are. The old person you used to be has already been buried. You are no longer the dead man that you used to be.
II Cor. 5:17 Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.
If I’m a new creature in Christ then what happened to the person that I used to be? He was crucified, and then he died and was buried.
Romans 5:8 But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
Someone says, “Well, if I’m not the old person I used to be, why do I still do some of the things I used to do?” Because the residue; the flesh is still allowed to control you and that is not the real you. It is not unusual to still have some of the old desires you used to have. The flesh has been trained by the person you used to be, to do things, to yield to it. Our flesh is a piece of meat, and the new man must train this piece of flesh. Its desires were brought about by yielding to the old man that used to be in it. That’s the key.
What we are taught in Christendom from the time we first go to church is that, if you are really godly, you won’t ever feel like doing any of those things anymore. That’s not the Bible principle. You train the flesh. The new man is training this flesh as we renew our mind to who we are, because we will always act like the persons we believe ourselves to be. We are new creatures in Christ in our spirit and that must come out upon us.
Now let’s prove it; how could I be dead? How could I have died two thousand years ago? We’ll give you three principles. 1. The Bible says you have died because everything Jesus did, he did as your substitute. Whatever Jesus did was put down on your account. He did it for you. When God sent Jesus to die for you, He didn’t just go there instead of you. If He died just instead of you, then you will not see change in your life.
It’s just like the example of a murderer who has killed twenty-six people and got caught. Someone says, “I’ll die for him.” That’s great for the murderer, and it gives you a sense of thankfulness to that person; but the problem is that we’ve still got a murderer on our hands. An innocent man died for the murderer, but the problem is, we’ve still got a murderer. In that guy’s own mind, he still is a murderer. He knows it, but he just doesn’t have to die.
That is what most people believe; they believe Christianity is just forgiveness of their past murders or sins. But it’s more than that. It’s good to know that God forgives you. But understanding your death in Christ makes you realize that not only are you forgiven, but the person who did those things you were forgiven of no longer exists. He does not exist! He is extinct! Jesus was our substitute, and what He did was for us; but what does God think? Substitution goes further in God’s view than in ours.
The reason God says our old man died with Christ is because...
2. Jesus became so much like who I used to be that God could legally view Christ as being me. Jesus, in the Garden of Gethsemane, said, “If there’s any other way, take this cup from me.” Why, because He didn’t want to be like me. He didn’t want to become who I was. Jesus did not die instead of me; He died as me. He died as everything that I don’t like about me. He died as everything God didn’t like about me.
This can also be seen in the Ark of the Covenant in Moses’ Tabernacle. That’s the hidden part of the ark. The ark was wood overlaid with gold, within and without. There’s something in there that can’t be seen if you just look at it. The table of shewbread was wood overlaid with gold. You couldn’t see the wood. Wood speaks of humanity, or the human side of all that Jesus is.
That is the hidden part, the mystery, and the revelation that comes from the twelve loaves, that Jesus became who I used to be. That’s the mystery; that’s the Pauline revelation; that’s the Benjamin message. That is, that Jesus became man and therefore actually died as us. The only reason God can say that my old man is crucified is because my old man was crucified. Someone says, “That’s just the way God saw it.” We had better see it the way God sees it, because He sees it correctly.
3. Since I am now in union with Christ, I am one with Him, His history is in fact my history. I am in the body of Christ. Everything that Jesus has is now mine because I am in Him. His history and his future are all mine. Once you get in Christ, you’ve always been in Him and you will always be in Him. His future is your future.
Now let’s picture it. There is a present day theme for every Old Testament book. In the book of 1 Samuel there are two kings and two priests. The two priests are Eli and Samuel. Eli is a fleshly priest; he couldn’t get the job done and brought reproach to the kingdom. Samuel replaces him and Samuel was a spiritual priest. In fact, both of them, from the very beginning of the book, are present.
In our own lives there is a decreasing Eli and an increasing Samuel, who is in the temple (which you are). There are two kings, Saul and David. There is a decreasing Saul and an increasing David. How do I let the Samuel in me take over, this godly priest who pleases God and actually anoints the king? How do we get this Eli out of the way? That is what Paul’s revelation is all about. Paul was a Benjamite. So we find here Eli, who was blind at this time.
1 Samuel 4:15 Now Eli was ninety and eight years old; and his eyes were dim, that he could not see.
The candlestick was going out in the temple. Eli couldn’t see. Your flesh man cannot see. The closer we get to the time of transition, the more we are going to walk in the Spirit. The flesh man cannot see. Scripture says he was heavy of flesh. Spiritually speaking, it has nothing to do with being overweight; but it means that too much flesh has caused you not to be able to see. We’ve got to get rid of his man. He’s the old man; he’s got to go. Now how does he go?
At this time there was a war between the Philistines and God’s people. Philistine means “to roll in the dust.” It pictures the war that is going on between the people of God and the enemy. Philistines could be types of demons of the flesh. This is a beautiful picture.
I Samuel 4:12-16
12 And there ran a man of Benjamin out of the army, and came to Shiloh the same day with his clothes rent, and with earth upon his head.
13 And when he came, lo, Eli sat upon a seat by the wayside watching: for his heart trembled for the ark of God. And when the man came into the city, and told it, all the city cried out.
14 And when Eli heard the noise of the crying, he said, What meaneth the noise of this tumult? And the man came in hastily, and told Eli.
15 Now Eli was ninety and eight years old; and his eyes were dim, that he could not see.
16 And the man said unto Eli, I am he that came out of the army, and I fled to day out of the army. And he said, What is there done, my son?
This “man of Benjamin” pictures Paul. God raised up a man in the New Testament named Paul and gave him a revelation. Shiloh means the place of rest. Why don’t some people grow up? Because they are like Eli, on the wayside. The residue of the old man says, what is done, my son? What is finished? That’s what I need to know. I’m in misery. I haven’t produced. I can’t produce. My question to Paul is, what is done? I don’t want to know what needs to be done. I want to know what is done. What is the finished work of Christ?
1 Samuel 4:17 And the messenger answered and said, Israel is fled before the Philistines, and there hath been also a great slaughter among the people, and thy two sons also, Hophni and Phinehas, are dead, and the ark of God is taken.
The ark of God is a type of Christ. This is the message that the messenger came and said; “here’s what you need to know, old man.” This is what you need to know about your old man. That Jesus went into the hands of the enemy; the ark has been taken. On the cross of Calvary Jesus allowed Himself to be taken into the hands of the enemy. He became our substitute. Jesus said, Satan, give me your best shot. He took everything for us. He said the ark of the Lord is in the hands of the enemy.
1 Samuel 4:18 And it came to pass, when he made mention of the ark of God, that he fell from off the seat backward by the side of the gate, and his neck brake, and he died: for he was an old man, and heavy. And he had judged Israel forty years.
When he, the Benjamite, (Paul) made mention of the ark of God (a type of Christ), Eli died, for he was a type of the old man. He was my old man. When my old man finds out what happened to Jesus, he will die. He will fall back and die and never return. Forty years is one generation. This is what gets rid of your old man. The Benjamite screams, Jesus is in the hands of the enemy. “No! No! How could that be?” Because He became who we were! I want to show you how perfectly this type is played out.
1 Samuel 5:1 And the Philistines took the ark of God, and brought it from Eben-ezer unto Ashdod.
Ashdod means “fortified”. They brought it into their stronghold. Jesus, the ark of God, went into the fortification of hell itself. What happened there?
1 Samuel 5:3 And when they of Ashdod arose early on the morrow, behold, Dagon was fallen upon his face to the earth before the ark of the Lord. And they took Dagon, and set him in his place again.
Notice he went there one day; they rose up the next day, which would be the morning of the second day.
1 Samuel 5:4 And when they arose early on the morrow morning, behold, Dagon was fallen upon his face to the ground before the ark of the Lord; and the head of Dagon and both the palms of his hands were cut off upon the threshold; only the stump of Dagon was left to him.
This would be the morning of the third day. By the morning of the third day there isn’t anything left but the stump. See how beautiful that is? Jesus rises on the third day and not only did He do away with my old man, but He defeated Satan. Just an image of him remains.
Not let’s make it practical. There are six steps to the throne. This first three are crucified, died and buried; those three things are all important, and they do away with who you used to be. God brings forth the new man in you by proving that the old man is gone. God knows that the natural process is that, if you don’t understand that the old man is gone, you will spend your whole life trying to do away with him. The whole church world is doing that.
We preach from the pulpits that we need to get rid of this stinking lifestyle. So we say, here are ten steps to getting rid of stinking lifestyles. We could even preach the positive side. Here are ten things that we must do because we’re Christians. We can’t do them. It always fails. That is the law. We always end up not being able to do it. We can’t do it. That’s the message: you can’t do it. If you could, you wouldn’t need Christ.
Romans 6:5 If we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection.
He didn’t say that you’ve got to live the resurrection life; He said you’ve got to be planted in the likeness of His death. Planted in His death. “But, Pastor, we’re not interested in death; we’re interested in life.” It is impossible to have resurrection life without a death.
So here is the first principle. If you are planted in the likeness of his death, then the natural consequence is that you will have His resurrection. We’ve got a whole bunch of people preaching resurrection life but living like the devil. Nobody wants that kind of resurrection life.
Romans 6:6 knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin.
In order to get to the place where we do not serve sin, we must know something; we must know that our old man was crucified with Him.
Romans 6:13 neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin: but yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God.
Have you ever heard this preached? “Quit sinning!” This word instruments, according to the marginal reference, means weapons. Quit using your instruments (your arms, your eyes, and your ears) as weapons against yourself. But, you see, there is something missing here. We say, “Know that your old man is crucified, that your old man is dead, and then quit sinning.” But there is a point here, and that is this reckoning part. Knowing how it was done.
Romans 6:7-11
7 For he that is dead is freed from sin.
8 Now if we be dead with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him:
9 Knowing that Christ being raised from the dead dieth no more; death hath no more dominion over him.
10 For in that he died, he died unto sin once: but in that he liveth, he liveth unto God.
11 Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Notice that “if we be dead with Christ” is in past tense. Who is he talking to? He is talking to born again believers, and he says, “…if we be dead with Christ.” That’s a past tense thing. V. 7 says we are freed from sin. Why should we reckon ourselves to be dead unto sin? Because His death unto sin was our death. He said, “Don’t do anything; just reckon what He did to be what needed to be done.”
Here’s the point. Here’s the way to make it practical. This is the answer. “Knowing this” (reckoning) comes before “not yielding”. Don’t tell people not to yield their instruments if you can’t teach them to know and to reckon. Reckon is the accounting part of it; it’s the mind renewal of it. It’s the thing that links together the “not sinning” and the “knowing.” The reckoning is the constant feeding on that until you get to the place where you say, that’s true. I don’t have to do that. I’m not that kind of person. That is something that is the natural consequence of reckoning. We read these things, and because we don’t reckon how they can be so, we don’t act on the facts of the redemptive work of Christ. That is God’s “end of the work statement.” The things it said are true.
We never act on these things because we can’t believe how it can be true of us. We must understand, reckon, how we became the righteousness of God in Christ before we will act on it. This comes from understanding our identification with Christ on the cross in His death. That’s what God is saying. The Bible says we are seated together with Him in the heavenlies. We are right now in the stage where we are reckoning it to be so. God is raising up a ministry who can make us believe it, so we can act on it.
Right now we act like we still did when we were in the world sometimes, because those “figures” have not been proven. My inheritance is a death and a resurrection; it’s mine. There are things deposited in my life that I need to draw upon. You can check things out from the deposited death. There are some things in my life that I still need to have removed. There are some things in my life that I need to have added. I need more temperance and more love. There are still some things in my life that do not manifest Christ. But all of that is on deposit in me.
God knew that at the end of two thousand years, that golden candlestick would be so bright, that it would show light on the bread. Isn’t it interesting that the table of shewbread was made before the candlestick was made? They made that whole table of shewbread before the light came, to show us that, when the light comes, something was already there that we were not able to see. The answer is there before the light comes.
People say, “Oh, here’s the light. Now when are you going to do something about my situation?” That’s what we do. The golden candlestick was put on the left hand sides as you walked in. Here’s what’s happening: the golden candlestick has been produced. There’s light. But we’re looking on the wrong side of it; we’re looking over here, saying, “Lord, when are you going to do something about my case?” He says, “Would you look over there? There are twelve loaves of bread over there. That’s six things Jesus did and six things that that means to you.” We’ve come to the Sabbath. We’re at the time of rest. The six days are over. It’s time for you to eat. The priest ate the bread at the end of the sixth day.
That’s a good principle. Even though they saw it, it wasn’t edible. You couldn’t eat it until the proper time, and we are at the proper time.
We’re there, and we’re going to find out what those pieces of bread are all about. We’re not just going to hold them. Eating them is the reckoning part. When you feed on them, when you get them in you, they are communion. They take you to the mercy seat. What is going to happen is that the church (the priesthood) is going to eat those twelve loaves, and we’re going to turn around and there is not going to be any veil. The veil is gone. It has been gone for two thousand years. But if you eat this bread, the veil is removed. It’s just not there. The only thing you see is the glory of God and the mercy seat. You don’t see our problems; you don’t have any problems that His blood didn’t take care of.
We can even enter into His rest now, because in Hebrews chapter 6, it says there will be those who taste of the age to come. Somebody has to do it first to show people the way. This has nothing to do with natural things; we’re talking about spiritual things.
Micah 2:10 Arise ye, and depart; for this is not your rest: because it is polluted, it shall destroy you, even with a sore destruction.
There comes a time in our spiritual life, wherever we are, where we realize that where we are spiritually is not going to bring us to rest. It’s just not going to do it. Every one of us has to leave some things behind when we realize they are not going to work. Which direction do you go? Isaiah 60 says, ARISE. You go higher. Not north, south, east or west, but up. “Up” is not a direction; it’s a dimension. We go higher. If you know rest is on down the line and you stay where you are, you are going to be polluted and you’re going to be destroyed. God doesn’t show you something if He doesn’t want you to go there.
Abraham left the Ur of the Chaldees because God said to leave. He didn’t show him anything; He said I just want you to leave. So he left the place where he was. You know what he saw first? He saw Jesus. The Bible says the Lord appeared to him. It says when he got away from that place the Lord appeared to him. The land we are going to is the Lord. In Genesis 12 he said to come on out from there, so he did move. He said “I’m going to show you a land.” But the first thing Abraham saw wasn’t a land; it says the Lord appeared to him. The whole principle is that the land he was going to pictures the Lord he saw. And the place where we are going is to the Lord, but first we must be willing to leave the place we are presently, in order to go higher in the things of the spirit.
I have had people say to me, “my old man, the man I used to be, is really giving me trouble.” The Bible says you not only were crucified and died; the Bible says you were buried together with Him.
Col 2:11 In whom also ye are circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, in putting off the body of the sins of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ:
12 Buried with him in baptism,.....
The sequence is easy; if you were crucified, then you died. If you died, what happens to you? You’re buried. If you’re buried, forget it. It’s what you think about someone who is buried that is your problem. Your old man is not your problem. Your old man was crucified, dead, and buried. Being buried with Christ, doing away with your old man, is not something you do.
People hear this message and they think they hear what we preach. They come up and say, “Pastor, I believe that. I’m going to do just what you’ve said; I’m going to bury the old man.” As soon as they say that, we know they didn’t hear, because that’s not something you do. That happened two thousand years before you were ever born. You can’t do that. What you must do is to renew your mind to having been buried. That’s the difference. My job is not to bury me; my job is to understand that I have been buried.
We tend to want to examine ourselves and say, “I couldn’t have been buried; after all, I’ve got this temper, and stuff like that.” That’s the reason you do, because you don’t understand that the old man is buried.
Let’s prove it in two ways:
- Everything Jesus did, He did for you, so that what He did was put on
your account. Like we said before if you put money in my checking
account for me, it is going to show up on my account.
Romans 5:8 But God commended His love toward us in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
If He died for me, then I died. That is where it starts.
II Corinthians 5:14 For the love of Christ constraineth us; because we thus judge, that if one died for all, then were all dead.
What does “thus judge” mean? This is the conclusion of the matter; this is the judgment. This has to be what we see. How many did Jesus die for? All of us; He died for the world. If Jesus died for us, then we all died. Here’s the principle: what Jesus did for you was placed on your account. The Bible says you died. The Bible says you were buried. The Bible says you were raised. The Bible says you are seated together with Him. - Jesus became so much like us that god viewed us with Christ in all He did.
John 12:31 Now is the judgment of this world: now shall the prince of this world be cast out.
32 And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me.
33 This he said, signifying what death he should die.
Verse thirty-three explains that He was talking about being lifted up between heaven and earth on an old rugged cross and dying there. This tells you what happened on the cross. He drew all men. Are you included in that “all men?” Aren’t you one of the “all” in the “all men”? “Men” is an all-inclusive thing; women are included too. He’s saying, “I’ll draw everybody into Me.” His crucifixion was the crucifixion of all men.
If I was to give you a test, and I said, “question number one. How many men died on that cross two thousand years ago on Calvary? How man people were hanging there? How many men died there?” The answer is, all men died there. Not just one man.
One of the greatest tragedies of the church world is to see the death of Jesus as only the death of one man. I’ve heard this song sung: “Were you there when they crucified my Lord?” The truth of the matter is, we should say: I was there. You weren’t watching you were participating. You weren’t standing off. What God is doing is taking you back there and letting you see yourself hanging there.
Question number 2. Jesus died so you wouldn’t have to. True of false?
You’d better put “false”. He didn’t die so you wouldn’t have to; His death was your death. He died because you needed to. That’s not a trick question. It is so important; your whole spiritual growth depends on it. Jesus’ death wasn’t so that you wouldn’t die; His death was so that you would die.
Question number 3. Jesus died so I could live. True or False? False. Jesus died so you would die; Jesus was raised so He would live in you. Galatians 2:20; read it.
Many Christians would miss some of these. Most people believe, “I’m forgiven, but my old man is still hanging around.” So they spend all their Christian lives trying to get rid of the old man. That is something that Jesus did. When that load gets off your mind, you realize that you don’t have to do that. People say, “I’m just crucifying my flesh.” You’re never going to get it done. Those scriptures mean that you have to apply His crucifixion to your flesh.
Galatians 5:24
24: And they that are Christ's have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts.
When you first read that, it looks like you have to crucify the flesh. But that’s not what it says. If you believe that you have to do that, because it is only those that belong to Christ that have crucified the flesh. If you think that’s something you have to do, then you’re not going to be in Christ until you get that done. That “have” is past tense; it has happened. It is a two thousand year old thing. They that are Christ’s have crucified the flesh. When did that happen? When Jesus died two thousand years ago.
“But I have things in my life.” But it’s the application of this principle that gets rid of those things, because you always act like the person you believe yourself to be. If you believe you’re just an old sinner and you have to sin a little bit every day, guess what you’re doing? Sinning a little bit every day, and sometimes, quite often.
Romans 6:7 For he that is dead is freed from sin.
You can take the biggest alcoholic that ever drank a drop, put that old boy in the grave, and he is finished with his problem. Do you understand what I’m talking about? He never drinks another drop again. Death frees you. He that is dead is freed from sin.
Romans 6:8 Now if we be dead with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him:9 Knowing that Christ being raised from the dead dieth no more; death hath no more dominion over him.10 For in that he died, he died unto sin once: but in that he liveth, he liveth unto God.
He is not talking about physical death. He is not saying that this is for people in the graveyard. He is talking about you and me. “If we be dead…” - is that past, present or future? It’s present tense. We are dead. This is who we are. My old man is dead; it’s not what I’m trying to be. This is the point: quit trying to be this way and accept what God says about you “being”. Whose sin did He die unto? He didn’t sin, so He died unto your sin once. His death was your death. He died unto that once.
The reason Paul says that, is that your death unto sin was in Him, so quit trying to kill yourself. Killing yourself is not going to do the job; you need to renew your mind to the fact that your old man has been killed.
You can say, “My body is not the real me. I’m in Christ. I don’t do those things. It’s His life flowing from me. Father, forgive me for acting like someone who has to die. I repent; I refuse to get in strife. I refuse to allow my body to act like the person who used to live in it, the old sinner person.”
The natural man wants to retaliate. He wants to do something to get even. The one that wanted to get even was killed before he could; he was buried. That’s the Christ-nature. It takes a revelation. You have to go back and see what happened there two thousand years ago.
If you were standing there in the flesh, you could not have seen it. I’m glad I wasn’t there, because what I saw would have affected me too strong. We would have cried, seeing the physical sufferings of our savior. But the most tremendous thing that happened on Calvary was not the physical nail in His hand; it’s His identification with you. He wasn’t dreading the physical pain of the cross; He was dreading the sin of the cross that He was going to have to identify with.
He said, “Father, if there’s any other way, take this cup from me. But nevertheless, not my will but thine be done.” Two thousand years ago the sky got black, and Jesus was nailed to a rugged cross where He said, “Father, into thy hands I commend My spirit.” God in the Spirit laid His hands upon the head of the church and imparted to Him the sins of us all. There I got everything I deserved.
It’s not recorded in scripture that I didn’t die; it is recorded that I died and was buried. That’s the reason that we baptize people that get saved; it’s actually a celebration of a funeral. Who died? You did. This is the picture of placing you in the waters of death. Get the flowers, the mourners, and the crying towels out. You can cry for a while; but when you come up out of the water, it’s shouting time, because you are a new creature in Christ.
Being buried with Christ means the finality of all of the old man. Once you put someone in the grave, there is finality to it. That is the principle of “buried with.” Why does God go to so much detail? Why doesn’t He just say, “You’re not who you used to be.” You have to not only see your old man crucified; you have to see him taken down from the cross and buried and the tomb closed up. Who’s in the tomb? The person I used to be. When that stone was rolled away and someone came out, that was my representative. It was just like my representative hung on a rugged cross for me and as me. Jesus walked out there as my representative of my new man.
That’s who I am seated together with Him in the heavenlies. If I don’t understand the first half, I can’t understand the second half. I will never see myself walking in Christ in the earth until I see Him dying as me on the cross. This country doesn’t need just some more words about Jesus; they need Jesus to live through us. But He will never live through us unless we see Him dying as us. We feel like we just can’t do it; after all, we’re so unworthy. Listen, you don’t even exist. The unworthy person was buried. You are in union with Jesus. The life that I now live, I live by the faith of the Son of God. We can say, For me to live is Christ. We are the body. We have the same “like” life.
My church, my community, my family, my wife and my kids do not need me to be the best daddy I can be. I’ve already proven that I couldn’t be. They need me to let Jesus be a daddy through me. Jesus can be a daddy through us. Jesus can be a husband. Jesus could be a wife or whatever you do, through you, and be it better than you could ever be in your own efforts. Amen.
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